Motorola has finally jumped on board the customization train and is now allowing owners of four of its devices  two smartphones and two tablets  to unlock their bootloaders. The move paves the way for users to install custom ROMs on their products, third-party standalone variants of the operating system that often come with new features, tweaks, and customizations.

The two smartphones Motorola's opening up for unlocking are the Photon Q (scheduled to hit Sprint tomorrow) and the RAZR developer edition; the two tablets are the Xoom (3G version) and the Xoom Wifi.

While the unlocking process is relatively simple, interested owners will first need to grab themselves a copy of the Android SDK, the Fastboot utility, and Motorola's USB drivers. The company's spelled out the entire process on a scary-looking, but informative series of Web pages.

By scary-looking, we mean that Motorola quite clearly states  in bold type, no less  that it, "strongly recommends against unlocking the bootloader and/or modifying or altering a device's software or operating system."

"Doing so can have unintended, unforeseen, and dangerous consequences, such as rendering the device unusable, violating applicable laws, or causing property damage and/or bodily injury," adds Motorola, conjuring up the image of one's tablet exploding into dust the moment the bootloader unlocks.

Additionally, unlocking the bootloader voids one's warranty with a Motorola smartphone or tablet. And, warns Motorola, the company is no longer responsible if you should find yourself with a bricked device after all of your fiddling.

The unlocking process also blanks one's device, nuking all installed applications and content  a useful fact and reminder that one should likely back up the content on a device prior to running the unlocking process.

Other than that, Motorola's bootloader unlocking tool is fairly straightforward. What's not quite as clear, however, is what devices  if any  might join the aforementioned unlock-friendly smartphones and tablets, and when Motorola might expand its unlocking tool to cover these additional products.

David Murphy got his first real taste of technology journalism when he arrived at PC Magazine as an intern in 2005. A three-month gig turned to six months, six months turned to occasional freelance assignments, and he has since rejoined his tech-loving, mostly New York-based friends as one of PCMag.com's news contributors.
His rise to (self-described) fame in the world of tech journalism began during his stint as an associate editor at Maximum PC, where his love of cardboard-based PC construction and meetings put him in...
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